Butchers Journal

Here is where I hope to put all animal related topics and hope that you can contact me for any butchering advice.

A great opportunity came up, where I do some butchering for a family. The offer was to cut up 6 Pigs, something I had not done for at least 10 years, not that it hard to remember. I ended up cutting them up into a bit of everything.

3 of the 6 Pigs

Barrel and Shoulder

Spareribs ready for the bandsaw

All cut up

Shoulder

Rolled Loin

Over the past few weeks I have been given the opportunity to do some farm butchering- 2 whole bodies to be exact- thats 4 forequarters ( consisting of chuck steak, blade steak, oyster blade, bolar blade, scotch fillet, pot roast, gravy beef) most of the 4 1/4 is for stewing, casserole or mince. The 4 hind quarters ( fillet steak, porterhouse, t-bone, rump, topside, silverside, round, osso bucco) most of the hind quarter is higher quality and should eb used for diced or low fat mince- most o fit will be used for steaks of some kind or roast. The silverside is traditionally pickled in Australia.

Its a real pleasure to cut up meat for people, they get a lot of meat from it and I also was able to bring home some meat for the work.

Unfortunately I did not take a lot of photos from start to finish which I endeavor to do so- from start to final product. Which I then hope you might be able to follow the whole process.

Some photos first then some small videos showing the boning of the shin to get osso bucco then cutting it up. anyone whom has not eaten osso bucco has not lived- forget fillet steak. This is real flavour.

Farm Meat House

nearly all done

Boning out a Beef Shin

Cutting up the shin into Osso Bucco- minus the bone ( its now really gravy beef)

A friend had some chickens to raise up to chooks and well we all know the story and so thus they ended up with 4 roosters. So they waited till they started to crow and called me.

Its not something that I take pleasure in but something that I can do and will make sure that their flesh will not be wasted, they will be respected thankful for it. My heart still raises a little- I would hate to think there was any suffering in the process, which I am confident that there is none- but until I get my head chopped off with a meat cleaver…who am I to talk!

I took them home at night time in a box, I went quietly to get my tools of the trade- all set up I took them out of the box, under a low light – then taking 1 at a time … once the ded is done I fell better, I then hung them up overnight.

Roosters after hanging for the night

Early the next morning before it starts to warm up, I can then de-skin them- almost like a rabbit- I have found its easier than trying to pluck them- because they are young their skin tends to tear.

De skinning roosters

and once I de skinned the rooster, then its the fun stuff ( not really) I then hooked them up the other way and gut them- yep the only way is to use your hand and scoop out the innards- using gravity to help

at work

The bucket underneath is to catch all the feather, blood and innards- I then buried this in the garden- every bit is not going to waste. So once I had them all prepared- I can then go ahead and cut them up into pieces and using washed meat trays I then froze them in their respective bits.

bucket o Rooster

This is my first video for the blog- sorry it needs a bit of work and I hope to do a better one , so you can follow along at home. I am hoping to have all animals on here being cut up as well.